Some Of Amazon's MP3 Tracks Contain Watermarks

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Some Of Amazon's MP3 Tracks Contain Watermarks

A spokesperson for Amazon confirmed my theory that the unprotected MP3s it started selling today contain watermarks that identify the songs to a certain extent. According to an Amazon spokesperson, the watermark only contains data indicating that the MP3 was purchased at Amazon (in other words, there's nothing in the file that indicates who purchased it):

"Amazon does not apply watermarks.Files are generally provided to us from the labels and some labels usewatermarks to identify the retailer who sold the tracks (there is noinformation on the tracks that identifies the customer)."

Since Amazon itself does not apply the watermarks, and labels presumably supply only one MP3 copy of any given song, there's no way for a label to directly identify and sue an individual if, say, someone were to steal that person's iPod and share its songs all over the internets.

Of course, if Sony/BMG, Warner Music Group, and/or Universal Music Group were to get their music included in the store (or all of its music, in the case of UMG, which currently allows a subset of its catalog to be sold on Amazon without DRM), they could insist that Amazon watermark each file with a unique identifier that could be used to trace the song directly back to its original purchaser, were it to appear on file sharing networks. Such things are possible, but that's another dilemma for another day. As of now, Amazon MP3 tracks do not appear to represent a threat to privacy.